BlueArc Nets $47 Million

NAS start-up BlueArc has hauled in a stunning $47 million funding round.

BlueArc also announced a 20% increase in customers during the second quarter and a 57% jump in revenue, and said the funding will be enough to carry it to profitability. The five-year-old company has received more than $150 million in funding to date.

The latest round was led by Meritech Capital Partners, with co-investments from Crosslink Capital and RWI Group.

"An investment of this size and nature in the current economic climate reinforces that customers and partners recognize that BlueArc is changing the economics of network storage," boasts Gianluca Rattazzi, chairman and CEO of BlueArc.

During the second quarter, BlueArc said it added to its customer base in key vertical industries, such as entertainment, education, technology, and oil
and gas, by securing new accounts with Accunet Solutions, Columbia University, Harvard University, Huron Consulting, Listen.com, Vanguard Animation, and WesternGeco, among others. Several existing customers also made additional purchases, including Altera, Everyone's Internet, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Oxford Magnet Technology.

BlueArc said the customer wins demonstrate a move toward scalable and flexible solutions for networked storage, solutions such as the company's SiliconServer architecture and new Multi-Tiered Storage solution.

"BlueArc has all the obvious keys to success, but what really separates it from the pack is the company's capability to deliver innovative, customer-centric solutions to market ahead of its competitors," says Donald Lucas, special limited partner of the RWI Group and a founding investor in Oracle, National Semiconductor, and Macromedia, among other companies. "That capability, evidenced by BlueArc's strong customer and partner network, is indicative of its growing influence on the greater storage market and a key reason we were attracted to the company."

BlueArc will need the cash and plaudits to do battle with established competitors such as EMC and Network Appliance , as well as start-ups such as Spinnaker.